Graeme Fairhurst

Graeme Fairhurst moved to London in 2005 having previously held several Research Grant Administrator roles at Cambridge University (Working for Depts of Computer Science, Physics and Engineering).

As a demurrage negotiator at BP, he worked on crude desk with particular attention on cargoes supplied into Trieste, Fos and Northern Germany for Deutsche BP and Lingen Refinery. Graeme spent time in Germany working with employees locally, to maximise and develop our demurrage handling capacity. Also dealt with WAF cargos and North Sea and built up really good relationships within BP and the wider demurrage industry – he was responsible for over 6 Million USD savings in first year working with the team.

Graeme then moved to Morgan Stanley in 2008 and within 9 months was asked to lead the demurrage team. Again, a wide portfolio of clients, including working with Ineos refineries in Grangemouth and Lavera as part of MS/Ineos J.V. Skills developed at this time included negotiations with NOCs and dealing with global view of client’s ‘outstandings’, as well as developing the necessary reporting and analytical functions necessary to accurately track and develop claim management.

In 2009 he opportunity to move to Geneva to work for Eiger Shipping (shipping arm of LITASCO ) and decided to make the move as had always wanted to have the experience of working abroad. Worked in Geneva for around 4 years, again covering crude and products deliveries, charter party and contractual demurrage across a global portfolio, including Russian up-stream supply, refineries in Med, NWE and Russia as well as trading opportunities globally (US, China, Europe, WAF).

In 2013, following the birth of his son, he decided to move back to the UK where he was appointed Claims manager at PetroIneos Trading Limited, again dealing with a broad portfolio of clients and claims. He instigated new procedures and developed the necessary systems to enable claim tracking and efficient issuance and recovery of claims. Major clients dealt with included Sonatrach, EGPC, PetroChina, plus majors and trading houses.

In 2015 Graeme joined BTG (now ECTP), with a brief to handle all demurrage and shipping claims as well as learning and developing Oil operations skills. He successfully learned and adapted to the different role, and for the last 12 months of working there he was head of the operations team and developed a wide range of skills including, trade finance, hedging, trade optimisation and decision making, chartering, blending and spec analysis as well as oil and ship operations at a high level. Graeme also spent a lot of time working on storage positions and analysis (handling close to 1 Million cbms of rented storage worldwide) as well as managing a product import business into Guatemala. and dealing with all demurrage and shipping claims.

Graeme currently works on claim collection and management projects for some of Smart Global's key clients, while also assisting with our learning and development services.